Doro Explorero's Quest to Travel Around The World

I am going to share to you here an excerpt of the book "Men's Relational Toolbox" by Gary, Greg and Micheal Smalley. I hope you get something from this, and improve somehow your relationship with your wife. :-) Men and women approach problems with similar goals but different considerations. While men and women can solve problems equally well, their approach and their process are often quite different. For most women, sharing and discussing a problem presents an opportunity to explore, deepen, or strengthen relationships. Women are usually more concerned about how problems are solved than if they are solved. The process of solving a problem can strengthen or weaken a relationship. Most men are les concerned about relationships when solving a problem. For most men, solving a problem presents an opportunity to demonstrate their competence, their strength of resolve, and their commitment to a relationship. How the problem is solved is not nearly as important as solvi...

I have previously shared about why men have trouble in conversation in this blog here . I am going to continue to share some of the insights shared by Gary, Greg and Michael in their book "Men's Relational Toolbox" by continuing the fact-finding tool issue (which I shared here ). This will not be a news flash, but most men are notorious TV remote control addicts. Some of us can watch upwards of five or six programs at once by flipping channels with the remote and still have a general sense of what's happening in every one of them. Or as comedian Jerry Seinfield said, "Men don't want to know what's on television. They want to know what else is on television." On the other hand, women can feel practically nauseous having so many channels and programs coming into the room at one time. This is an example of the fact-finding tool in action. Let's say, for instance, that a couple sits down to watch television. The first program they check ou...

When in it comes to relationships, one of the areas many guys fall short in is conversation. Here's the problem: In the workplace most men use three primary tools to communicate - the fact-giving tool, the fact-finding tool and the take-charge tool. While these are effective tools in that setting, they are not particularly helpful for building relationships. We will look at the communication tools that can help make you a success when it comes to your relationships, but first let's take a look at the three communication tools found in most men's internal toolboxes and examine their weaknesses when it comes to personal relationshps. Let's start with the fact-giving tool, the one most of us guys seem to specialize in using when it comes to our relationships. THE FACT-GIVING TOOL The fact-giving tool is the ability to communicate the facts and nothing but the facts. This is a wonderful tool in the workplace when dialogue must be succinct and efficient...

Long afterward, Mr. Darby recouped his loss many times over, when he made the discovery that desire can be transmutted into gold. The discovery came after he went into the business of selling life insurance. Remembering that he lost a huge fortune because he stopped three feet from gold. Darby profited by the experience in his chosen work, by the simple method of saying to himself, "I stopped three feet from gold , but I never stop because men say 'no' when I ask them to buy insurance." Darby became one of a small group of men who sell over a million dollars in life insurance annually. He owed his "stickability" to the lesson he learned from his "quitability" in the gold mining business. Before success comes in any man's life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, perhaps, some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is exactly what the majority of men do. More than five...

Men are born with an internal toolbox. Internal tools are as important to us men as our toolbox out in the garage. They are so important that if we woke up one day and didn't have these tools, we'd be lost, just as lost as Robert was when he discovered his toolbox had been stolen. Just like a man who once lost his tool pouch. The story played out this way. A female friend of ours had an appointment at the local middle school. She was waiting at the office counter when a man dressed in a suit and tie rushed in. He was breathles, and sweat was dripping off his forehead. In his hand was something large and cumbersome - about the size of a grocery bag. At first our friend couldn't quite make out what it was.  "Here you go," he said as held it up. His tone was similar to the one man uses when he's bagged a five-point buck. But our friend could see that this man wasn't carrying a deer. He held in his hands a large tool pouch overflowing wi...

I am going to share here what Gary, Greg, and Michael Smalley said in their book "Men's Relational Toolbox" It all centers on the toolbox. After thousands of hours researching relationships and thousands more counseling others about them, we've stumbled onto a truth we believe can help any man build or repair his relationships. The truth is this: We build and repair our relationships much the same way we build and repair anything else - by using the right tools. That's right. Our ability to effectively build or repaire our relationships depends on the quality and number of items in what we call our "relational toobox." If you want to build or repair deck around your house, you need a box full of right kind of tools. The same is true if you want to build or repair a relationship. However, the problem with many of us guys is that we lack the right relational tools for the job. That doesn't make us the dimmest lights in the harbor. It m...